February 19, 2015

Loren has been working pretty hard the last few sim days. Having three children and a fourth on the way can make a sim go to work less than clean and arrive home completely filthy. But if there's one thing that modern sims do, it is multitask, so Loren takes a nap in the tub, satisfying both energy and hygiene needs at once.

I guess the tub has built-in features to prevent sleeping sims from slipping underwater and drowning, but I don't see how the tub's bubble jets can really get her clean if she doesn't move around much.

February 18, 2015

One of the big upgrades in build mode with The Sims 4 is the ability to move around and plop down fully made rooms. I tried using this feature to build a house only from premade rooms, but something still isn't quite right...

The door from the dining room to the kitchen didn't update the wall well enough. This house was built only with premade rooms that are preinstalled with the base game, so this isn't a custom content issue. On seeing this, I tried moving the door and furniture around, but it wouldn't display the open archway correctly no matter what I did. The sims living here didn't seem to mind since they walked through the phantom wall section without any problems.

February 16, 2015

Christie is a collector. She wants to collect everything, but knows that she has to create the paintings before she collects them. But she's mixing the cooking skill with the painting skill when she eats...

The paint brush got stuck to her hand when she went to make lunch. Maybe she wants to slather some barbecue sauce on her meat...

February 14, 2015

I tried watching for a fun screenshot opportunity that would be appropriate for the holiday today, but didn't see very much that I would consider bonk-worthy. The best that I got in the last couple months of simming is this curiosity (which I would classify as a lighting bug) showing some unusually shaped shadows near the romance light.

The lighting system in The Sims 4 has always seemed a bit dark, but I don't see anything in the room that would cast these triangular shadows under the window, especially when the baseboard on that wall is compared to the baseboards on the two adjacent walls. This scene was captured in the default the large corner bedroom of the Parkshore house in Willow Creek. I only added the romantic reward light from TS3 Late Night to the room.

February 12, 2015

When The Sims 4 was released, like many other simmers, I spent a lot of time playing different families and learning the ins and outs of the new version. As a bit of a foodie IRL, I made a foodie sim and leveled her up through the basic and advanced cooking skills. One of her dishes turned out to be hot enough that the stove burner followed it around the kitchen.

It's a little hard to see, but that bright blue circle under the counter is the stove burner animation. I was half expecting the kitchen to erupt in flames from this.

February 11, 2015

The sims I am playing right now live in Oasis Springs. I built a house for them on the vacant lot there, and when they're not busy with skill building or off at work, I have one of them run around the neighborhood on a collecting spree. Off at one corner of their neighborhood is this unusual rock formation...

Those three rocks are floating above the ground. I don't think this is a hint at future expansion packs; EA probably isn't going to resurrect the Harry Potter Makin' Magic pack, but you never really know...